A depiction of the "long serpent" rocket launcher from the 11th century book Wujing Zongyao. The holes in the frame are designed to keep the fire arrows separate.
11th century AD - The first documented record of what appears to be gunpowder and the fire arrow, an early form of rocketry, appears in the Chinese text Wujing Zongyao.[1]
Robert Anderson suggests using metal for rocket casing
In Europe, around 1250 both Roger Bacon and the Liber Ignium gave instructions for constructing devices that appear to be rockets.[2]
1650 - Artis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima ("Great Art of Artillery, the First Part") is printed in Amsterdam, about a year before the death of its author, Kazimierz Siemienowicz.
1664 - A "space rocket" is imagined as a future technology to be studied in France and its drawing is ordered by French finance minister Colbert; designed by Le Brun on a Gobelins tapestry[4] (see: French space program)
1696 - Robert Anderson suggests making rockets out of "a piece of a Gun Barrel" whose metal casing is much stronger than pasteboard or wood[5][6]
1798 - Tipu Sultan, the King of the state of Mysore in India, develops and uses iron rockets against the British Army (see Mysorean rockets).
1806 - Claude Ruggieri, an Italian living in France, launched animals on rockets and recovered them using parachutes. He was prevented from launching a child by police.[7]
1861 - William Leitch publishes an essay "A Journey Through Space" (later published in his book God's Glory in the Heavens (1862)) in which he postulated the use of rockets for space travel because rockets would work more efficiently in a vacuum.
1913 - Without knowing the work of Russian mathematician Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, French engineer Robert Esnault-Pelterie derived the equations for space flight, produced a paper that presented the rocket equation and calculated the energies required to reach the Moon and nearby planets.[8]
1916 - first use of rockets (with the solid fuel Le Prieur rocket) for both air-to-air attacks, and air-to-ground.[9]
1928 - In Germany public displays of rocket experiments, initiated by Max Valier and Fritz von Opel, via Opel RAK which achieved speed records for ground and rail vehicles in 1928[12]
1935 - Emilio Herrera Linares from Spain designed and made the first full-pressured astronaut suit, called the escafandra estratonáutica. The Russians then used a model of Herrera's suit when first flying into space which the Americans would then later adopt when creating their own space program
1941 - French rocket EA-41 is launched, being the first European liquid propellant working rocket[15] (It was, however, preceded by the Peenemunde A5 and Soviet experiments.)
1941 - Jet Assisted Take Off JATO installed on US Army Air Corp Ercoupe aircraft occurred on 12 August in March Field, California.
1952 - Wernher von Braun discusses the technical details of a crewed exploration of Mars in Das Marsprojekt.
1953 - Colliers magazine publishes a series of articles on humanity's future in space, igniting the interest of people around the world. The series includes numerous articles by Ley and von Braun, illustrated by Chesley Bonestell.
1961 - the USSR launches Vostok 1, Yuri Gagarin reached a height of 327 km above Earth and was the first person to orbit Earth.
1961 - US, a Mercury capsule named Freedom 7 with Alan B. Shepard, spacecraft was launched by a Redstone rocket on a ballistic trajectory suborbital flight. It was the first crewed space mission that landed with the pilot still in the spacecraft, thus the first complete human spaceflight by then FAI definitions, but later it recognized that Gagarin was the first person to fly into space.[17][18]
1962 - Pakistan launched Rehbar-I and was the first country in Islamic world to successfully launch a vessel in outer space.
1963 - The USSR launches Vostok 6, Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman (and first civilian) in space and to orbit Earth. She remained in space for nearly three days and orbited the Earth 48 times.
1963 - US X-15 rocket-plane, the first reusable crewed spacecraft (suborbital) reaches space, pioneering reusability, carried launch and glide landings.
1965 - USSR Proton rocket, highly successful launch vehicle with notable payloads, Salyut 6 and Salyut 7, Mir, and ISS components
1965 - Robert Salked investigates various single stage to orbit spaceplane concepts[19][20][21]
1965 - FR Diamant, first French and European rocket to reach orbit, France became the third space nation.[22]
1966 - USSR Luna 9, the first soft landing on the Moon
1966 - USSR launches Soyuz spacecraft, the longest-running series of spacecraft, eventually serving Soviet, Russian and International space missions.
1968 - USSR Zond 5, two tortoises and smaller biological Earthlings circle the Moon and return safely to Earth.
1968 - US Apollo 8, the first crewed mission to reach and orbit the Moon.
Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the Moon during Apollo 111969 - US Apollo 11, first crewed landing on the Moon, first lunar surface extravehicular activity.
1975 - EU ESA, creation of the European Space Agency.[23]
1979 - EU Ariane 1, first Ariane European rocket.[24]
1980 - EU Arianespace, creation of Arianespace, world's first commercial space transportation company.[25]
1981 - US Space Shuttle pioneers reusability and glide landings
1988 - EU Ariane 4, first launch of the Ariane 4 rocket.[26]
1996 - EU Ariane 5, first flight of the Ariane 5 rocket, self-destructed in flight. After that, Ariane 5 will be the main European rocket for decades.[27]
2014 - First booster rocket returning from an orbital trajectory to achieve a zero-velocity-at-zero-altitude propulsivevertical landing. The first-stage booster of Falcon 9 Flight 9 made the first successful controlled ocean soft touchdown of a liquid-rocket-engine orbital booster on April 18, 2014.[32][33]
2017 - SpaceX's Falcon 9SES-10 was the first time a used orbital rocket made a successful return[35]
2018 - The Electron rocket was the first New Zealand rocket to achieve orbit. The rocket is also unique in using an electric pump-fed engine. The rocket also carried an additional satellite payload called "Humanity Star", a 1-meter-wide (3 ft) carbon fiber sphere made up of 65 panels that reflect the Sun's light.[36]
2020 - The SpaceX Dragon 2 launches on the Falcon 9 rocket whilst carrying crew, marking the first time astronauts have been sent to space via a private company.
Astronauts assemble the ISS2023 - India launches Chandrayaan-3, the first spacecraft to land on the Moon's south pole.
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Clark, Stephen (2008-09-28). "Sweet Success at Last for Falcon 1 Rocket". Spaceflight Now. Retrieved 2014-11-30. the first privately developed liquid-fueled rocket to successfully reach orbit.
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